A Game of You
by Viridicus
Summary: A bleeding, bedraggled owl crashes into Sarah's window to warn her that the Labyrinth is in danger…or a Goblin King and his co-conspirator hatch a very elaborate plan to win her affections. They might succeeded…if Sarah was still a fifteen-year-old with dreams of being a princess. Now she's far more formidable, and much harder to fool.
1. In Which Sarah Gets A Nocturnal Visitor

**A Game of You**

**Viridicus**

**Synopsis: **A bleeding, bedraggled owl crashes into Sarah's window to warn her the Labyrinth is in danger…or a lovelorn Goblin King and his new friend hatch a very elaborate plan to win her affections. They'd probably have succeeded…if Sarah was still a fifteen-year-old with dreams of being a princess. Now she's far more formidable, and much harder to fool.

**Chapter One: In Which Sarah Receives a Nocturnal Visitor, and the Goblin King Gets Acquainted With Hydrogen Peroxide.**

_"Ready?" _

_ "Ready."_

_ "All right?"_

_ "All right. Wait—not too hard, all right? And not too deep, either, it'll ruin my hairline."_

_ "Dear gods, _fine. _Now hold still!"_

_ "If you could just—"_

_ "Stop _squirming—"

"OW!"

"_You great _baby. _Whining over a little cut you can magic away in a second. Come on, get back here, you've got four more to do."_

_ "Three."_

_ "_Four. _Honestly, if I can get tattoos for my very own self, I think you can handle a little scratch for a girl you say you love. Now sit down. Ready? One, two, three…"_

"OW!

Tapping on the window of her dorm room roused her from sleep. She was so lucky she'd gotten a single for the last three years, she groused as she moved, still half asleep, to her window to shoo it off. Owls stalking her, yetis and dwarves emerging from her mirror, fox knights popping round for tea and Scrabble…no roommate would have been equipped to share the life of Sarah Williams.

She was halfway to opening the window before she realized something was odd. The owl had not been round for nearly three months. Having grown used to, if not particularly tolerant of, its usual nocturnal antics of hooting and screeching and buffeting the window with its wings at inopportune moments (especially when she had boys over), Sarah had been surprised at first when it had stopped showing up, but eventually come to enjoy the uninterrupted sleep. She had resolutely avoided asking Hoggle or Sir Didymus where the owl might have gone…until they, too, had disappeared, nearly a month back. Devastated by the loss of her best friends, Sarah had been waiting for the owl to turn back up. She had some words to say to him, and none of them were ones he wanted to hear.

It. The owl was an it.

When Sarah wrenched open her window she realized abruptly it was raining, as a ball of wet feathers careened into her, bounced off her chest, and landed on her chemistry notes with a squishy thump. Her eyes bugged. "Ohhhh no, you are _not _ruining those!" Heedless of its talons and sharp, curving beak, she picked up the owl and deposited it none-too-gently in her chair. Expecting it to perch on the back, she was a bit surprised when it only hooted and ruffled its feathers weakly.

At that point Sarah realized it wasn't just water on her notebook.

After she had wrapped the owl in a towel and mopped up most of the blood with another, she sat on her now cleared desk and looked it in its large, luminous yellow eyes. A million questions raced through her head, questions about Ludo, Hoggle, and Sir Didymus, about the Labyrinth, about what could possibly have done this to the proud, powerful Goblin King…but what came out of her mouth was, "Did you fly too close to a cat or something?"

The owl gave a squawk that smacked strongly of indignation, and all of a sudden she was scooting back because the Goblin King was in her chair, decidedly less magnificent but still highly imposing. His shirt was in tatters, and long scrapes bled freely on his arms, leg, and forehead. At first stopped dead by the incongruity of a Goblin King sitting on _her _small, uncomfortable desk chair, _her _towel draped across his shoulders, hair dripping (still!) on _her _chem notes, she was quickly over it enough to shout, "Oh _hell _no. I want no part of this. You have no power over me, I didn't invite you here, and I want you out!"

Shock mingled with fury in the mismatched eyes, and his jaw visibly clenched, but he appeared to be mastering himself. "Sarah…I have come to ask for your help." His voice was low, pained, a little breathless, as though he had flown far. A small tendril of pity attempted to snake its way into Sarah's heart, but she batted it away.

"The answer is _no._"

"But you haven't even heard what I—" Jareth stopped himself short. "Sarah, I ask not only for myself but for the sake of the Labyrinth, and of your friends. Surely you've been wondering where they've been these last months?"

Sarah's eyes widened. "What's wrong? Are they—"

"They're safe, for now. The Goblin Kingdom is under siege by a very powerful sorcerer, and they are taking part in its defense, as are all my subjects. As you can see…" He lifted his bloody arm, giving her a rueful look. "It's not going particularly well."

"And you think _I _can help?" Sarah said dubiously. Half of her was screaming to go with him immediately, to see the Labyrinth again and help save her friends no matter what the cost, but the other half wanted to know what his game was, because she knew the Goblin King of old. He _always _had something up his sleeve. How could a college junior—and _his _former adversary—be of any help? She was no sorcerer.

_But the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl, and given her certain powers…_

As though reading her thoughts, the Goblin King said, "You have power over the Labyrinth, Sarah, whether you know it or not. You broke my illusions, my castle, my power. _You _turned the world upside down. You are the Champion of the Labyrinth. And I believe…I believe you are the only one who can save it."

He was gazing at her earnestly in a way that made her badly want to believe him. She had missed the Labyrinth, she realized, missed the magic, missed her friends…missed him? The powerful pull of his light and dark eyes, his dark velvet voice, his lean, strong body, bleeding and folded as it was into a too-small chair, was undiminished. But her will was strong. She sighed.

"The fact remains, Goblin King, that you are dripping and bleeding on my rug. I'm going to get you some Band-Aids, and then you can tell me _everything _about this sorcerer of yours." She fixed him with a hard stare, daring him to argue, and was pleased when he swallowed hard. But he argued anyway.

"Sarah, there's no time! Every second I'm away from the Labyrinth gives him a chance to steal a march on me! He could be halfway to the castle by now!"

She cocked an eyebrow. "And you can fight him in that state?"

Jareth looked down at himself, as though only just realizing how he must appear. "Oh, this. Ah…perhaps some medicine might be appropriate before we set out. My magic is somewhat dampened in this iron place."

Sarah nodded. "That's what I thought. Know how to use a Band-Aid?"

Jareth stared at her. "A what?"

_ All right, how's it going?_

"I'm not…sure," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "She's gone off to get some sort of bandages, and I think she's going to help me treat my wounds—which _hurt_, thank you very much—but I think she's going to come with me. You were right—keeping Hedgewort and the yeti back was a good idea."

_I'm not going to say I told you so, but I told you so. What's the but, though?_

"The…but?"

_You have a but in your voice. 'Sarah's going to come with me, but…'_

Jareth frowned. "She's not…taking it quite as I expected. I would have thought she'd be ready the moment I said there was danger and that she had power, and gods know she's sighed over missing the Labyrinth enough times in the last five years. But she seems to think I have ulterior motives."

_Which you do_.

"_I _know that," he snapped, exasperated, "but she shouldn't! It's like she can see right through me, or at least half! What if she figures it out?"

Hesitation. Then, _Stick to the plan for now. If need be, we'll reevaluate. For now, though—_

"Shh! She's coming."

_She can't hear me, you twat._

"I know, but you're distracting me!"

_Shut up!_

Sarah emerged back into the room, bearing bandages and a small brown bottle in one hand and a suspicious look on her face. Jareth assumed as innocent a look as one can when one is an evil child-stealing Goblin King. "Who were you talking to?"

"Myself," he said, too quickly. "Rehearsing battle plans. Sarah, I really must insist—"

She shook her head. "Nope. Push the chair out and turn it around. I want a look at that big one on your leg. I'm premed, so I know what I'm doing." She grinned.

Jareth swallowed a groan and did as she said. This was not going according to the plan, not at all. Half of him wanted to give a big screech and fly out of the window and right back to the castle to lick his wounds, and the other half wanted to grab her and kiss her for the tiny spark of concern he thought he could see in her eyes when he grimaced at a twinge from his leg. That grimace turned into a roar when she poured liquid from the brown bottle directly onto the cut, making it foam and sting abominably. "What in _hells _are you doing, girl?" he shouted, half leaping out of the chair. "Gods of all the hells below, that—" He forced himself to shut up, and only then became aware of the voice shouting at him to sit down and stop being such a baby. Sarah quickly echoed it.

"Jesus, who'd've thought the might Goblin King would go ballistic over a little bit of hydrogen peroxide?" Jareth didn't know what that was, but it sounded odious. She was smearing some kind of ointment onto a large gauze pad, and she slapped it briskly over the wound, making him hiss. Before he could say anything to defend his honor, she had taped it to him quickly and professionally. "There, that should prevent infection…if your kind get infection." She looked at him curiously. "What are you, anyway?"

"Fae," Jareth said, before he could stop himself. "And we don't, usually…but in such an iron-infused building, who knows? We really should get back to the—"

"Not until we get the one on your face," she said, shaking her head. Jareth bit back another hiss. He'd forgotten, though he couldn't imagine how, just how stubborn the girl could be. He forgot all about his impatience, though, when she brushed his hair back to get a better look at the wound on his forehead. His mind went blank and his body went still and tingling, as though she were a skittish animal he was trying not to startle. The touch of cool fingers on his skin was like silken fire, burning away his frustration and impatience. When she swabbed out the cut, he barely even grimaced.

"The rest don't look too bad," she said, and he opened his eyes, realizing only then that he'd closed them. "We can probably take care of them when we get back to the—"

"Trifles," he said, making them disappear, and rising from the chair, so close to her he could feel the heat of her blush. "We should go."

"Right," she said, swallowing and stepping back quickly. "How do you want to do this?"

Jareth tore his eyes away from hers to peruse the window. It had been large enough to admit an owl, but there was no way he could create a portal to the Underground through it. He thought for a moment, or rather longer than a moment, because he was finding it incredibly difficult to think with the sensation of those bright green eyes on him. Feeling her impatience grow, however, he at last forced out, "Is there any way to get to the roof?"

"Well, yeah," Sarah said, "we'd have to take the elevator, but—"

"No elevators," Jareth said firmly. She gaped.

"Seriously, Goblin King? It's fourteen flights up! And I was _going _to say, before you interrupted me, that there _is _a roof access door, but it's always locked."

"That will be no trouble," he said airily, waving his hand. "And as for the elevator, I have no desire to be trapped in an iron box for any length of time."

Sarah rolled her eyes, but didn't fight him. "Fine. Wait for me in the hall."

He looked at her blankly. "Why?"

"Oh for God's sake, Jareth, I am _not _going to go back to the Labyrinth in my pajamas!"

Sarah emerged from her room maybe twenty minutes later, enough time for Jareth to have started tapping his pointy-toed boots on the floor. She had dressed in the most practical clothes she could find on such short notice—a pair of roughed-up leggings she used for rock climbing, a tech shirt, and a backpack with water, snacks, and a can of pepper spray her father had forced her to take to college. Catching the Goblin King eyeing her again, she wondered darkly whether she wasn't going to need it after all. Pulling her hair into a tight ponytail, she led the way to the stairwell. "C'mon, Goblin King," she said, opening the door. "It's further than you think, and time is short." She grinned to herself silently as she heard his steps stutter, imagining the look on his face as she flung his own words back at him.

By the time they reached the top, she was struggling hard not to pant, but she'd be damned before she let him see her winded. She joggled the handle uselessly and turned to face him, and was startled to see him glowing softly in the darkness. She covered her surprise by saying flatly, "Well, that's got to come in handy when you're checking your oubliettes. How often do you—"

"Oh…about every century or two." The glow dimmed a bit. "Now then—" He flicked his wrist and a crystal appeared in his hand; when he flung it at the door, it opened to a cloudy night, the air heavy with after-rain smell. They tangled a bit in the door, but he pulled back as though stung when she touched him and let her through first. Soon they were standing together in the cool air, and she shivered, wondering if it was this cold in the Labyrinth. Rubbing her arms briskly, she said, "Are we gonna do this or not? It's not like I have all—"

Before she could finish her next word, a crystal was in his hand. He tossed it to the edge of the roof, but where it should have fallen to smash into the street below, instead it broke open in midair to reveal the glory of the Labyrinth stretched out before her, its alien yellow sky rippling against the black one of Above. Her breath caught involuntarily in her throat, and she forced it out in a rush. The Labyrinth…repository of her childhood dreams, her girlhood hopes, her teenage desires…she shivered, and it wasn't just because of the cold. Behind her, his velvet voice said, "Welcome back, precious, to the Labyrinth."

A/N: This is my first fic in a while, and my first of _Labyrinth_, so any and all reviews are highly appreciated!

-Viridicus


	2. Calico

**A Game of You**

**Viridicus**

Synopsis: A bleeding, bedraggled owl crashes into Sarah's window to warn her the Labyrinth is in danger…or a lovelorn Goblin King and his mysterious co-conspirator hatch a very elaborate plan to win her affections. They'd probably have succeed…if Sarah was still a fifteen-year-old with dreams of being a princess. Now she's far more formidable, and much harder to fool.

**A/N: **Thanks to all my reviewers, tonemara, Autumn Butterfly, lulipmoran, Honoria Granger, and Alexandria Keating!

**Chapter Two: Calico**

Sarah quite expected to be taken instantly to the Castle, and was quite surprised when Jareth did not immediately whisk them off to it. When she turned to ask him why they were still standing in the garden at the edge of the Labyrinth, which certainly bore no signs of a great struggle, Jareth shook his head and put a finger to his lips. "The sorcerer's spies are everywhere," he said. "If I exert the magical effort necessary to translocate us to the Castle, he will know, and be upon us in a moment. We will have to make our way through the Labyrinth on foot."

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. He was the lord of the Labyrinth, the Goblin King—surely no interloper could reduce him to creeping through his own Labyrinth like a common dwarf. Speaking of which… "This is Hoggle's garden," she said, letting him off that hook (at which he sagged visibly in relief). "Where's Hoggle?"

At the question, he drew himself up again to tower over her. "This is _my _garden, and Hogwart is my gardener," he said. "Or was. At this point, as Prince of the Land of Stench, he is spearheading the defense of that corner of my kingdom." He was clearly very pleased with himself; catlike dark amusement sparked in his eyes. It was almost as much at his smugness as at his treatment of Hoggle that Sarah felt herself going hot with fury.

"You big bully!" The look on his face, an O of perfect surprise, was so good that she wished she had a camera. "You goddamn bully! You think it's funny treating him like that, when all he—"

"He defied my orders," Jareth growled. He had recovered himself, and his eyes had gone dark. He took a step closer to loom over her, entirely the dark, forbidding Goblin King, and it took nearly all of Sarah's courage to keep glaring at him and not step back. "I told him to lead you back to the beginning of the Labyrinth; instead he led you on, and aided you at every turn. As one of my subjects, under _my _dominion, he is enjoined by magical oath to obey my commands."

"So he had to go and live in the _Bog?_" said Sarah, and was pleased to find her voice barely shook. "That place is disgusting. It's like living in a colon. _Nobody _deserves that."

"Didymus has been living there for years in perfect happiness," said Jareth delicately. "I have heard no complaints from him, except that he does not have enough challengers, and wishes me to bog more goblins for him to fight."

"Hoggle is _not _Didymus," Sarah said, low and furious. "He's afraid, and you're forcing him to _live _in one of his biggest fears! I can't believe you even—"

Jareth had a look on his face that seemed divided between wanting to strike her down with a well-placed lightning bolt and wanting out of this conversation. He was in luck. Something large, dark, and leathery zoomed low over their heads and released a fireball of epic proportions, and before Sarah could even yell Jareth was diving into her, tackling her away from the flames. "Oh my God!" Sarah shrieked from the ground, where he lay half on top of her, his arm around her waist. "What the _hell _was that?"

"A creature of the sorcerer," said the Goblin King grimly, offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. Thick, black leather armor was molding itself to his body, giving him a deadly serious look, and instead of his habitual silver-headed riding crop a long, slim, curving sword hung at his side. Sarah tried not to gape at him.

The leathery dragon-creature was coming back for another pass, its frog-like mouth gaping wide and glowing red. "We need to get under cover," Sarah said, eyeing the thing. "Where's the Labyrinth door?"

"Wherever it needs to be," said Jareth, and he tossed a crystal at the sandstone wall. A very familiar arch appeared, but instead of the ornate carvings and twisting vines Sarah had expected, the doors were splintered inward, as though they'd been rammed to shreds. Jareth met her shock with a dark look. "When I denied him entry, the sorcerer forced his way in. The battle has been raging through the Labyrinth ever since. The place defends itself, though—more traps and snares have appeared than ever before. It's put itself on war footing." He seemed grimly satisfied at the thought. "We shall have to be doubly careful, however. The Labyrinth does not discriminate between friend and foe, and we may find ourselves caught by the very entrapments meant for our enemies."

Sarah sighed. "Great. Okay, Goblin King, which way?"

In answer, Jareth set off right along the glittery path, strewn with weeds and branches. His strides were long, and she had to struggle to keep up, much to her annoyance. "We will have to pass along the borders of the Labyrinth," he said, "to avoid the major sites of battle, where the dangers are to be most concentrated. That will take us into wilder places, places whose wildness I have had less chance to regulate and contain, but hopefully the Labyrinth will have less defenses thrown up there. We will not be able to avoid battle entirely, so…"

He stopped and turned to eye her form. The sensation of his eyes lingering on her curves was nearly like physical touch, and she shivered even as she glared at him. "What are you do—"

Armor grew around her body, armor much like his, that fit her to perfection. It was hard enough that she could imagine it stopping arrows, if not bullets, and it moved easily when she swung her arms. She was premed, but when she ran her fingers along the butter-smooth leather of the bracers and greaves, the English minor part of her thrilled. She looked up at Jareth, to see an almost anxious look in his eyes. It vanished the moment his met hers. "Well?" he said impatiently.

It took Sarah a moment to figure out his question. "It fits perfectly," she said, half-grudging the words as she remembered the feeling of his eyes on her. And then, after a pause, "Thank you."

He couldn't quite hide his shock, much as he tried; his eyes were greatly softened. After a moment, he swept her a graceful bow. "You're welcome."

X X X

They continued down the Neverending Corridor for maybe an hour, until Jareth took them through a slit in the Labyrinth's wall and they found themselves in the Garden of Mobile Topiary, where the Labyrinth became a hedge maze. As they walked, Jareth found it quite difficult to keep his eyes off Sarah. _His _Sarah, here, in _his _Labyrinth, at _his _side, and spitting only a minimal amount of flames at him! Still, bringing up Hedgehog's appointment as Prince of the Land of Stench had been unwise, as had, perhaps, fulfilling that promise he had made the dwarf shortly after Sarah's departure from the Labyrinth. It had been part of a two-year fit of pique, in which the Bog of Eternal Stench had expanded, a volcano had appeared belching fire in the southeastern part of the Kingdom, and more goblins, chickens, trolls, hags, witches, kitchlins, scracks, and garbage-pickers had been bogged than at any other time in living memory. He had never taken any defeat—not that there had been more than a handful of them—so hard. It took Calico to figure out why.

That was not his true name, of course, but true names have power for magic users, and when Calico had come to him and announced himself as such, Jareth had smelled the power on him and left it alone. He had, at first, thought Calico a runner, and had treated him as such, but when he turned up in the Goblin City in five hours having a drunken brawl with about fifty goblins, Jareth was not so sure. Calico had confirmed it: he had not been wished away, but was here to be Jareth's student in the art-magic, especially in the illusions and glamours particular to the Fae. When Jareth asked why he had not said so in the first place, and saved himself the trouble of running the Labyrinth, Calico had merely shrugged. "Just wanted to see if I could do it."

Later, when he had gotten to know Calico well enough to call him Cal, and to stop bristling when he called Jareth, as the goblins did, "Kingy," they had spoken of the last runner to defeat the maze. Cal had been merely curious, and not in the least prepared for the Goblin King's explosion. Literally—the volcano erupted just as Jareth burst out, "She is the most completely stubborn, insufferable, infuriating, beautiful, captivating, bewitching girl in all of humanity!"

Cal had raised his eyebrows. "That bad, huh?"

Thus a large part of Cal's training had been directed towards acquiring the skills he'd need to help the Goblin King ensnare Sarah Williams. It had been two more years—or roughly seven, in the non-quite-synchronous-and-wildly-unpredictable-Gob lin-Kingdom time—before either of them judged themselves ready to begin the grand illusion they had concocted together. Calico was nervous, as well he might be: this constituted his final examination, before he could return to those who had send him.

_Well? _came the voice to Jareth. _How was it?_

"Believable," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "but a bit thin around the edges. You'll have to do better than that."

_I was working under pretty short notice, _Cal said peevishly. _You can't expect me to be perfectly ready to cast a Major Sending every time you put your foot in your mouth._

Jareth opened his mouth to retort, then shut it. That was true. "All right, so what's next?"

A rustling, as of paper. _Um…danger in the Firey Forest. No, sorry, that's wrong, I've got the wrong page. Hang on…_ More rustling. Jareth's impatience spiked.

"Oh for gods' sakes…"

_Shut up, don't get your outrageously tight breeches in a bunch. Ye gods, I don't know how you stand those things…_

Jareth allowed himself a smile. "It's quite simple, really. My arse is better than yours."

There was a very rude, very audible noise. Sarah froze. "What the hell was that? Are we somewhere near the Bog?"

"No," Jareth ground out. "Probably just a Living Fart."

Sarah collapsed into helpless giggles. "Jareth, that sounds like something Toby might have come up with!"

The sound of her laughter affected him far more than he could have imagined; it did not, however, last long. Sarah's face darkened, and they walked on in silence for maybe ten minutes. Jareth was left to helplessly contemplate just how much he wanted to reach out and touch her hair until she said abruptly, "What happens to them? The kids you take."

He sensed he was on dangerous ground again; by the warning noises Cal was making between the rustling of pages, he could tell his student concurred. "Well," he said cautiously, "if the runners make it through the Labyrinth, they are restored Aboveground, with little memory of what has befallen them."

"And if they don't?" Sarah said, looking at him sharply. He tried to prepare a lie, and failed. It was _Sarah_, after all.

"They become goblins, with no memory of their previous lives—or, really, any memory at all. If I've told them once I've told them a thousand times that chickens are food, not friends—"

"And what about their families?" Sarah demanded, and he swallowed the rest of his sentence with his intense irritation at being interrupted. "If they fail, do they get to forget? Or do they just have to go on with a hole in their lives, knowing their kid is Underground and they'll never see him again? What happens then, _Goblin King?_" They had stopped and squared off, and she fairly spit his title at him.

_Found it! _shouted Calico, in his head.

"Sarah," Jareth began quietly, but he was interrupted by a thunderous growl from atop one of the hedges. An enormous black wolf was looming down at them, green eyes shining eerily and very, very white teeth shining in the Underground sun.

It launched itself at Sarah.

**A/N 2: **Hey all! I greatly appreciate the response I got for Chapter One, and that definitely encourages me to keep writing. I am, however, a thesising college senior, and thus my chapters are going to be spaced necessarily pretty far apart until senior week and, probably, graduation, as I will likely be spending senior week too drunk to write. Still: keep reading and keep reviewing, and I will get the chapters out as soon as I can!


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